Yesterday afternoon I went to the hospital's EEG reading room to look at the day's studies.
Unfortunately, only one had gotten done all day, and there was a note on the monitor that said "Doctors, sorry we couldn't do all the studies today. We had to send the EEG machine to Bio-Med to have it thoroughly cleaned".
Lucky for me, it was one of my studies that did get done. It was on a confused ICU patient, so I started reading it.
The study ended abruptly at 8 minutes (normally they go for 20), with the following commentary in the tech notes:
0745: Pt yawning.
0748: Pt moving around, agitated.
0750: Pt pulled poop tube out of butt and is playing with it. Nurse running to bedside.
0751: Ending study.
Haha! I think I know why that machine needed a thorough cleaning. Of course it had to be one of Dr. Grumpy's patients causing the trouble!
ReplyDeleteI've never pulled a tube out of my butt during an EEG. At least, I don't think so.
ReplyDeleteok. What?
ReplyDeleteyanno if I have a tube up my butt I'm probably gonna want to pull it out too, however not so much with the playing. Ew
ReplyDeleteOh holy moly. This was a great distraction from my all-night studies. This is a gem.
ReplyDeleteOH DEAR LORD!
ReplyDeleteA tube up the butt? I've never heard of that being done...medically.
ReplyDeleteIt's common in the ICU setting. Technical term is a "rectal tube".
ReplyDeleteWhy don't they make medical equipment poo-proof?
ReplyDeleteDon't these biotech companies know that in our line of work there is poop, blood, and vomit flying everywhere?
and this why hospitals should allow hands to be tied safely for confused and agitated patients. and those jackets things that keep them in bed when they are at risk for falling or the bed rails up. it's pretty dang hard on us family members trying to combat this stuff when we are sitting with the family member. i've been pooped on, literally (no tube involved), had to try the body block maneuvers to keep the person in bed (they fell anyway) and the nurses and tech can't run to get there fast enough. Doc just get to read about it (mostly) and not see their studies. hmm, things that make me grumpy . . .
ReplyDeletesorry, Dr. G. i read this and thinking about getting pooped on because both bed rails couldn't be put up came to mind. i did manage to get out the way before i got peed on another time.
Yaa, Biomed does not really like it when this happens. At least blood does not smell. And I really do not know what they put in some feeding pumps but you have to take the whole unit apart to clean and it is not fun.
ReplyDeleteThat poor nurse probably needed a thorough cleaning as well. I can't believe our profession started out wearing white.
ReplyDeleteJeaz. What kind of EEG's are they running in that place??
ReplyDeleteOk, story time. I once worked in a group home with severely developmentally and physically disabled adults. I hated my job. The final straw came the night the rest of the staff decided to go outside to have a smoke, leaving me in charge of getting all the residents ready for bed. I had to give one resident a shower. I am 5'2. This man was over 6 feet tall, well over 200 pounds, and used a wheelchair. I wheeled him into the shower area and started giving him a shower. He then pooped. And pooped. And pooped some more...I swear he must have pooped out half his body weight. He then picked up the poop and started rubbing it all over his hair and face and into his mouth.
ReplyDeleteYeah. I never went back.
I had no idea that rectal tubes were routinely used, having only heard of their placement for the barely tolerable every 4 hours vancomycin rectal enema treatment for + c. difficile; maybe used for something else, but... .
ReplyDeleteSurely a patient would not be left alone with a radiology tech to manage test and patient with one of those at the same time!
This is just gross with implication.
ewww...lol
ReplyDeleteNiiiice.
ReplyDeleteOn another note entirely, I don't know if you're familiar with Grey's Anatomy, but Theresa and I have just started watching the DVD's. As a trained professional, please answer this for me: is there any way in hell that those idiot interns would NOT have gotten fired, like, four episodes in?
doctor d- neurology= no poop, no blood, no vomit. the genius of grumpy revealed. but through a wrinkle in the space-time continuum.... chaos.
ReplyDeleteAre you talking about Flexiseals?
ReplyDeleteMe: yawn, where am I? Something is
ReplyDeleteamiss....can't put my finger on it.
3 mins later:
Me: Can't get comfortable, no matter
how I move, discomfort
2 mins later:
Me: the problem seems to be...hey WTF!! There is a tube in my bum!!!
Me:
Me: Damn .. WTF..I just came in to
test for Epilepsy!! These guys are
perverts!!
Me: Feels better without the offending assualt in my nether regions! My lawyers will hear about this!!
NOTE: Excuse the spelling errors
I hope no one knows it is me!!
VM: HOSEDARG (def: what I went through!)
P.S. You would have been 'agitated'
ReplyDeletetoo if you woke up to a perfectly good sleep to this!
When I was in nursing school I assisted an RN caring for an 850 pound man who had broken both hip sockets and split all of his leg skin in an auto accident. His rectal foley came out. Not a good day. Took 12 people to move him and replace.
ReplyDeletePoop -- is that the technical term?
ReplyDeleteLOL!!! Ah, the joys of medicine.
ReplyDeleteNow the question is: did the poop excavating motion represent seizure activity?
I've been reading blogs all morning, and this is the one that made me laugh out loud.
ReplyDeleteMaybe a little restraint was in order.